Murder Boy. Bryon Quertermous

the least awful of my bad options.

      “The bills are worth more than $2500,” I said.

      Rickard smiled a wide beaming smile and looked down at a plastic children’s watch with the Detroit Tigers logo on it and said, “We go in ten minutes.”

      “How much are they worth?”

      “Forty dollars,” he said.

      “Jesus Christ,” I said. “You’re a loon.” You’d rather have $40 in cash rather than $2500 just because it doesn’t match the denomination? I love quirks but this is too much. I’m done. Jesus.”

      I took seven steps and turned around to give one more last zinger when he said:

      “Each.”

      Oh.

      I did the math in my head and came up with $100,000. Not a fortune, but enough to make a difference.

      “I’m supposed to give Parker a vial of my blood,” he said, tapping his wrist and holding it up for me to see.

      “Blood?”

      “For the book.”

      “You talk about my focus and what I need to be doing, but you gotta stop talking in riddles, man. My brain is fried. I’m an emotional grenade and I just candle handle this shit.

      “The publisher specializes in rare production techniques to make boring books special. In this case, he’s adding a vial of my blood to the printing ink for the book. It’s not as creepy as you’d think and is quite common in comic books. Shit. Duck down. He’s here.”

      I should have been worrying about the mental state of the guy I was hitching my future to, but for some reason the only thought running through my mind was that I still couldn’t believe that a pretentious hack like Parker Farmington had a book deal.

      

      RICKARD HANDED me the sticky knife again.

      “In case,” he said.

      He reached in front of me into the glove box and took out a small revolver that looked like it had been pulled from a swamp. It was faded and crusted with gunk and looked like the only danger it posed was tetanus.

      “What’s the plan?” I asked.

      “We’ll go down there, do what I’m supposed to do and wait for a good time to hit him.”

      There was a gusty wind whipping around outside, making it even colder than it looked. I had on a wool pea coat I’d purchased at a military surplus store and for once, my choice to look artsy paid practical dividends. I was still wearing the red Flash t-shirt I’d worn to the department party and over that I had a hooded gray Detroit State University sweatshirt.

      The coat blocked the wind and kept my hands (and the accompanying knife) warm, while the hood helped cover my head and face for warmth and concealment purposes. My outfit helped slim my portly writer figure and his thick sweater and thick hat bulked up his rather scrawny build, giving us both the impression of muscle to be thrown around.

      As we approached the storage locker, Titus Wade pulled up in his truck while Farmington was unlocking the door. At first nothing seemed amiss and Parker didn’t run away when he turned and saw Wade coming his way. Rickard stopped and motioned for me to do the same.

      Their discussion quickly escalated to a physical confrontation with Farmington swatting at Wade. For a brief second I laughed at his pathetic attempts at self-defense, but then Wade reached around to his back and pulled out a small black box he shoved into Farmington’s neck. I’d seen enough news reports recently on police brutality to recognize a Taser. Rickard and I rushed toward the locker. Wade had Farmington in the back seat of his truck and was slamming it shut when we caught up to them and yelled for him to stop. Wade made a brief move like he wanted to go back to the storage shed before leaving, but quickly reconsidered and jumped in his truck and sped away.

      I started to run back to my car to follow them, but Rickard kept moving further toward the storage shed. Wade must have thought about going back for the money, but when we showed up he cut his losses and ran. I didn’t want to think about the sort of plan he had where Farmington was more important to him than a bag of money.

      “Let’s go,” I yelled.

      Rickard kept walking toward the shed.

      “I’m getting my money.”

      “But we can’t let Wade—”

      “Do what? So he stays with Wade instead of you for a little bit. This way we get the money and the professor.”

      My emotions were swirling in the same cocktail of panic they had the night of the department party, so I took a breath and calmed myself. I could dredge up enough bad thoughts to keep me pushing through the ugliness of a kidnapping, but a scam with cash and Wade holding the professor only spelled doom.

      And yet I kept dwelling on the things I could do with that money. I led a life with minimal expense and minimal commitment to maximize my chances of surviving on my future writing income, making even a small infusion of instant cash go a long way. All I wanted was Farmington’s signature on my thesis approval form. With the money though, I wouldn’t need it.”

      “Come on,” Rickard said through my brain farts. “He might come back.”

      I sprinted back to Rickard as he was fiddling with the lock on the storage shed. The lock was an electronic keypad on a black iron box. While it was one of the more complex pieces of engineering I’d seen to date, I was surprised at the ease with which Rickard was typing in a combination and opening the lock.

      “You know the combination?”

      “Baseball,” he said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

      He had the lock open, but was having trouble getting it off of the door to open it.

      “I know baseball,” I said. “Pitchers, catchers, Ball Park hot dogs and overpriced beer. How does that—”

      Rickard snapped his head around and glared at me.

      “You don’t know baseball,” he said. “You don’t know the soul of the game or the way it gets into your brain and just…”

      He left it at that and I wasn’t stupid enough to chase him into whatever crazy place he’d pulled that from. So I stuck my little girly hand in the space between the lock and the door and helped him tug it open.

      “Aside from the rusty doors and CIA surplus locks, this doesn’t seem like a very secure place to stash a bag full of cash,” I said. “You could probably take out one of these side panels with a screwdriver and a strong breeze, bypassing the lock completely.”

      Inside the shed, Rickard bumped around a bit while I stayed closer to the door, trying to get a peek of what else was in the shed. There didn’t seem to be much else, but I saw a couple of cardboard boxes in the middle of the floor. Before I could contemplate the boxes, their contents, or my uncomfortably burgeoning curiosity in Parker Farmington’s life and secrets any further, Rickard pushed by me with a large suitcase in one hand and a small handgun in the other.

      “How old is that thing?” I asked, following him back to my car.

      “Newish. Fired I’m sure, but untraceable.”

      “The suitcase,” I said. “It’s in great condition, but good god, it’s got to be older than me. How much do you think something like that would go for on eBay?”

      He didn’t answer me, we made it to the car without any further trouble, and as I settled into my seat I began to imagine something better for myself. I imagined my share of the money going into a bank account with low interest and high security. I’ve never been good with my real life money, but in my fantasies I turn into Mr. Fiscal Security. But all it took